Thursday, 1 September 2011

Welcome to the App Sharing Zone!

For today’s blog post, I thought I would initiate a great app sharing process that I first heard about from a lecturer friend, who regularly tells his students to whip out their iphones/ipads/smart phones during downtimes in tutes, and to go around the room and share the latest cool new app that they can’t live without, with the rest of the group.

Ok. I’ll go first.... but not before I disclaim that this has a kinda self-serving purpose, because I was recently lucky enough to be given an iPad for my birthday – (how lucky am I?) and I’m always on the lookout for awesome, cool apps. I find that I tend to find out about cool apps in a random and serendipitous manner (someone really should create a catalogue for apps, that uses controlled vocabulary, because I find using the itunes store, less useful, but that might be just me) Or is there one already out there?

So, what better way to find out about great apps but to lean on my professional learning network (ie you guys!)?

I’ve listed some of the apps that I’ve recently discovered and/or can’t live without. Note: For the apps that are only available for iPad, I’ve included iPad in brackets after I’ve listed it. Where possible, I’ve listed if the app was free at the time that I acquired it.

Social Media apps

-Facebook app for iPhone (free) I’m still trying to find a comparable app for my iPad that doesn’t crash or randomly forget to give me notifications. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve got MyPad+ and Friendly, but they don’t cut the mustard.

-Hootsuite (free)- a dashboard for updating to all of your SM accounts

Productivity apps

-SpringPad (free)- great for making notes, clipping web pages and generally keeping track of everything in my life

-Paperless- another great list making app (There’s a free lite version)

-PhatPad- (iPad) it does OCR on your handwriting, and converts it to text! This requires the use of a stylus.

-DocsToGo- create and sync Word documents and Excel spreadsheets on the go!

-Dropbox (free)- for document sharing and storage

-Evernote Peek (free) – (iPad) FABULOUS study tool that allows you to use the smart cover to test yourself- great for learning vocab if you’re learning a language!

-Evernote (free, but with option for paying for more storage) – (you need an Evernote account to use Evernote Peek)

-Popplet lite (free)– (iPad) great brainstorming app

RSS feeds/news apps

-Pulse (free)– this is my new ALL TIME favourite app, which allows you to customise your news feeds. It looks pretty, and it’s FREE!

Photo apps

-FlickStackr – (iPad) lets’s you upload photos from your ipad to Flickr and other SM such as Twitter and Facebook

-Instagram (free)- an oldie but a goodie, that lets you customise your photos with fancy filters and share them on your SM networks.

Other

-Scrabble

-Words with Friends (free)

-Goodreads (free)

-Dictionary (free)

-smh (free, for the moment)

-Pkt weather app

-ABC iview (free)

Of course this list is not exhaustive, and I’m sure I’ve missed your favourite app, so please leave a comment and we can start going around the room and sharing!

- Crystal

Crystal Choi is a committee member of ALIA Sydney and tweets @crystalibrary.

About Me

We are a group committed to providing professional development events for Library and Information professionals in Sydney. Our 2017 Committee members are: Lauren Castan, Roopa Shah, Eleanor Gerrard, Maria Savvidis, and Melinda Bruning. Contact us at aliasydneygroup@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter: @aliasyd.